


Kobayashi Maru

by mystivy



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Fedal - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 20:57:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4452098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystivy/pseuds/mystivy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rafa knows there is a decision to make.  One that will affect not just his tennis, but his life.  But there's no easy answer to this one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kobayashi Maru

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank yous to Captain Adonis for his indefatigable willingness to read and comment. <3

The others talk but he is quiet, his eyes fixed glassily on the sad, limp grass of the motorway, the billboards, the tower blocks in the distance. The convergence of traffic towards the airport, the bellies of planes low beneath the clouds. “Rafael,” says Toni, nudging him in a lull of conversation, but he has nothing to say, just holds his nephew’s gaze for a moment and then, satisfied, lets it go. Rafa turns back to the window. They leave England quietly through the labyrinthine passageways of the airport to the first class lounge, then shuffle to the plane, boarding while it’s still empty. Rafa takes the window seat again, watching the luggage arrive, the men with hi-viz jackets and brightly lit wands, the rabbits playing in the grassy islands in the network of taxiing lanes and runways. Then take-off, into the grey, layers of it, drops clinging to the window till they breach the clouds and the sun shines in white and fierce, blinding him, and behind his eyelids his vision turns red.

“Sure, of course you’ll take a break,” says Toni in the car from Palma. “Where will you go? Ibiza? Sardinia?”

“I don’t know yet,” says Rafa. “I’ll talk to the guys.”

“And then after, with Xisca,” says Toni.

Rafa sighs. “Yeah,” he says. “Naturally.”

Toni looks at him sidelong but says nothing for a moment. “Rafa,” he says, then. “You know that--”

“I know,” says Rafa, cutting him off. It’s too much to think about now. Too big a question. But all the same he feels, deep in his gut, that the day is coming closer and closer that he’ll have to answer it.

 

He goes to Ibiza, where he swims and scuba dives and eats long meals in the dark evenings with his friends. They talk late into the night, drinking a few beers. Candlelight flickers on their smiling faces. Or they go to the clubs and congregate in loud groups, now and then interrupted by fans asking to take photos. Rafa obliges. He dances and talks about anything but tennis. When they finally turn in he goes to bed with Marc, who fucks him till he can’t think anymore.

“Rafa,” whispers Marc, later. He presses a kiss to Rafa’s neck. Rafa grunts, already half asleep. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

A deep sigh, and Rafa turns around in his arms. “I know,” he says. He kisses him softly.

“Think of me when I’m gone.”

Rafa smiles drowsily. “I always do,” he says. He rests his head on Marc’s shoulder and they fall asleep boneless, dreamless, tangled and sweating in the heavy Mediterranean night. 

 

“I don’t know how much longer he can stand this,” says Xisca, lying out on the deck of the boat, Rafa leaning over her. The paparazzi can see them but are too far away to hear.

He kisses her cheek. “I think he’s fine,” he says. She turns her head away from him a little, and he can see the tide of tears in her eyes. She blinks them back. “What?”

“You don’t know him like I do,” she says. “You’re friends, you and Maymo, but a girlfriend sees things differently. I just don’t know…”

Rafa lies back beside her, eyes fixed on the sky. Seagulls wheel overhead, looking for stray food or fish disturbed by their snorkelling. Waves lap hollowly against the sides of the boat and somewhere there’s a jetski buzzing past, its diesel smell rolling over them on the breeze.

“It’s not fair on you, to say this, I know,” she says. “But maybe it’s not fair on him either.”

“Or you,” he says, looking at her. She holds his gaze.

“No,” she says. “Maybe not, not anymore.”

“There’s no contract,” says Rafa. “You could stop any time.”

She raises an eyebrow, reproach in her eyes. “Rafa,” she says.

He sighs, looking back up. “I know. I know,” he says, and he does. The sky is a deep, afternoon blue, the dome of space stretching over him in cosmic eternity, but the ground is shifting beneath him and he must find his balance.

 

“What do you think about Hamburg?” says Toni. It’s Sunday evening and Rafa is due at the club on Monday. His first practice after Wimbledon.

“I don’t know,” he says. They’re on the deck of the house in Porto Cristo, watching night crawl up from the horizon, dark and glittering over the restless sea. “Is there any point playing on clay? I was shit on clay this year.” 

“Why don’t we give it a couple of days’ practice and decide?”

Rafa shrugs. “Sure,” he says, rubbing his left palm, feeling his fading callouses. They will soon be built up again. He picks at a flake of dry skin and flicks it to the ground.

“Even a chance at a title, Rafael,” says Toni.

“Don’t,” says Rafa.

Toni sighs, tight and exasperated. “We have to talk about what you need.”

“It’s always been ‘we’ and ‘us’ till now, Toni,” says Rafa. “Why the change?”

Toni stands, hands on his hips, and leans against the glass railing at the edge of the deck. If it wasn’t for the steel post beside him, he’d look like he was leaning against the night itself. “Because that’s tennis, Rafael,” he says. “Other things in your life… well. They’re up to you. And unless you tell me what you want, I can’t know. Not when it comes to this.”

“Nothing,” says Rafa. “I don’t want to change anything. I just need to keep doing things as usual, keep practicing, keep playing.”

“Okay,” says Toni, nodding. “Okay. Then we’ll play Hamburg.”

“Fine,” says Rafa. “We’ll play Hamburg.”

Toni looks at him for a moment, and Rafa feels a gulf between them wider than any there’s ever been before.

“Okay,” says Toni again, half under his breath, before he heads into the dimness of the house and leaves Rafa with his thoughts and the rising dark, the thin sliver of a new moon palely illuminated among the last drifts of haze overhead.

 

Hamburg is grey, sometimes rainy, sometimes lit up in bright, watery sunlight. They look to the skies like augurers, calculating the future in its fluctuations. Rafa and Jaume warm up twice for their doubles match, the second time timing it right.

“Sorry,” says Jaume afterwards.

“No, no,” says Rafa, throwing his arm over the kid’s shoulders. They’re in the locker room, quieter now than it had been earlier, their clothes and shoes and rackets encroaching into the space left vacant by other guys. “Team game,” he says. “Team loss. No one’s fault.”

Jaume shrugs and sits heavily on the bench. “I guess they were top seeds,” he says.

“Yeah,” says Rafa. “Not a bad loss. Nothing to feel down about.”

“You’re stuck with shit draws this week, man,” says Jaume.

Rafa laughs a little. “Yeah,” he says. He sits down too, and kicks off his shoes. “That’s the sport, no? Can’t control the draw.”

“I don’t know how you control anything,” says Jaume. “The chaos around you. The screaming. It’s intense.”

Rafa peels off his shirt and crumples it into his kit bag. His socks are stained copper with clay and sweat. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s not always easy.”

“I don’t know how you do it,” says the kid. He’s shaking his head, staring at Rafa in a kind of awe.

“You get used to it,” says Rafa, shrugging. “Maybe you will, no? In a few years? It could be the same for you.”

Jaume doesn’t grin at that the way some kids would. He frowns a little, looking down at the ground. “I don’t know if I could handle it,” he says. “It’s tough enough for a day, playing with you, all the people, the fans. But wow, ten years of it? That’s scary, to be honest.”

Rafa peels off his socks, soaked through red like blood, and lets them fall on the floor. “Yeah,” he says, quietly. “I guess it is, a bit.”

“Hey, sorry, wow, Rafa,” says Jaume. “Sorry, man, I didn’t mean that. Obviously you can handle it.”

Rafa just smiles wryly at him. “I don’t know if anyone can,” he says. “Not really.” He stands up, picks up his soap and shampoo, and heads for the showers, one last rueful smile back at Jaume as he goes.

 

“You can do it,” is the last thing Toni says to him before he walks on court, and he does. He beats Fernando in three sets. Three desperate, grinding sets, and despite the scoreline, any one of them could have gone either way. But the match went Rafa’s and he feels like he could float back to the locker room. Toni bear-hugs him as if he’s won a final. “Yes,” he says to him. “That’s the way, Rafael.”

“You looked good,” says Rafa Maymo when he’s on the physio table. “Any pain?”

Rafa shakes his head. “No,” he says.

“Good,” says Maymo, smiling. “That’s good news. I thought that backhand down the line at 3-1 in the third might have stretched something.”

“Nope,” says Rafa. “All good.”

Maymo nods and gets to work.

“Hey,” says Rafa, after a while. “Will Xisca be coming to Canada and Cincinnati?”

“I don’t think so,” says Maymo. “New York, though. Turn over.”

Rafa shifts to his front, leaning his cheek on his crossed arms. “Okay,” he says.

“You knew that, right?” says Maymo.

Rafa shrugs. “I guess,” he says.

“Listen, Raf,” says Maymo, working his thumbs deep into Rafa’s thighs. “She told me what she said to you. Don’t… don’t worry about me. I mean, we both knew what this would be like when we started, you know?” He moves onto the calves. “So it’s fine. Don’t take what she said to heart.”

Rafa is silent for a moment. “She meant it, though,” he says.

Maymo says nothing. “I don’t know,” he says, eventually. “Maybe it’s something we have to work out. Me and her.”

“Maybe,” says Rafa. He presses his forehead to his arms and closes his eyes. “Maybe it’s something we all have to work out.”

Maymo doesn’t reply to that. Rafa winces when he digs into the sole of his foot. “Is that okay?” says Maymo, carefully.

“Yeah, just normal,” says Rafa, pain radiating from the arch right up his shin, almost to his knee.

 

He has time to go home after he loses in the semis. He sunbathes on the deck and trains at the club and then Marc arrives, the day before they fly to Montreal.

“Hey,” he says, coming in the door to Rafa’s house in Porto Cristo.

Rafa hugs him and kisses him and says “I missed you,” and Marc smiles wide and soft and kisses him back, hotly, deeply, and says, “I missed you, too.” Rafa brings him to bed and Marc spreads Rafa’s legs and fucks him, long and slow.

“Did you miss this while I was gone?” he says, breathlessly. “Tell me.”

“Yeah,” says Rafa, hooking his ankles around Marc’s waist, pulling him in for a kiss, then turning them over and straddling him. “I’m glad you’re back,” he says, smiling, dimpled, and Marc says, “Me too,” and Rafa rides him till they both come. They collapse, sprawled in the white sheets, the late slanting sun raking over them and the sound of the sea washing in gentle hushes from the open window.

They fly the next day, long haul across the Atlantic. Down below is endless sea, a dark, hammered blue spread out from one horizon to the other. Rafa watches it, trying to find a boat, an island, anything, but they are too high.

“Hey,” says Marc, reaching across the seat to him, stroking his arm. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” says Rafa, smiling a little. Marc goes to pull his hand back but Rafa stops him. “No one’s looking,” he says, and he entwines their fingers and holds Marc’s hand for a while in the dim cabin, tucked away in the front corner of first class.

“Let’s watch the same movie,” says Marc, but they can’t quite get the players to sync.

“Come on,” says Rafa. “Get in here and we’ll put the cover up.”

Marc looks at him, surprised. “Are you sure?” he says.

Rafa shrugs. “Yeah,” he says. “Come on.”

So Marc ducks his head and they squeeze into the same cocoon, lying together in the dim light, sharing earphones, and by the time the credits roll they’re both asleep.

 

“That was dangerous, Rafa,” says Benito, as they walk through the airport. Rafa still looks sleepy, dishevelled. His t-shirt is creased and he feels sweaty. Marc is ahead of him, heading towards baggage reclaim.

“I know,” says Rafa. The fluorescent light overhead makes them all looked jaundiced in the grey hush of the corridors. Benito looks like he wants to say more but Rafa pushes through the doors to the baggage carousels and there are too many people clustered around, too many sidelong glances, too many people readying their phones to take pictures. 

_There he is,_ says someone. _I heard he was on our flight. Who’s that other guy?_

_Marc Lopez. His doubles partner._

_Oh._ They aim their cameras at Rafa and he waves and smiles.

They take their bags and cases and pile them on carts, and push their way out to arrivals. There’s a driver with a sign: Nadal.

“Look,” says Benito, later, in the hotel. He’s talking low to Rafa, but Marc is there too, listening, and Toni. “You know we can do anything you want. But you have to decide. One or the other.” Outside the windows the night is dark and the city stretches, twinkling, for miles. “You can’t have both.”

Beside him he feels Marc wince a little. “Okay,” says Rafa. “I get it.”

“Do you?” says Benito. “Because what happened on the plane today, you can’t do that. Not if you want to keep it up with Xisca.”

“I know, I know,” says Rafa. “Just… I need time. I need to think.”

Benito sighs. “Look, Rafa,” he says. “I know this is big. I know you need--”

“What I need, Benito, is to not talk about it.”

Benito looks stung for a moment, but then his face clears. “Okay, Rafael,” he says, fondly. “I get you. Okay.” He nods and glances at Toni, and they share some silent communication, drifting away, leaving Rafa and Marc alone.

“You know I would,” says Marc, quietly.

“I know.” Rafa scrubs his hand over his face. “I know that, Marc,” he says. “But I don’t know if I can. I just don’t know.”

Marc nods. “Is he coming tonight?”

Rafa has already checked his phone. There’s a text: _See you at 10_ , it says. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” says Marc. He puts his hands in his pockets. “Then I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Marc,” says Rafa, as he turns to leave, and Marc stops and looks at him, but there’s nothing to say.

 

It’s never better than with Roger. He comes into the room, his hands on Rafa before the door even closes, their mouths hot on each other. “It’s been so fucking long, Raf,” he says, already peeling off Rafa’s t-shirt, unbuckling his belt.

“I know, I know,” says Rafa, feverishly unbuttoning Roger’s shirt, pinning him to the wall before he’s even finished, pushing against him, hands in his hair, on his broad shoulders, sliding down the taper to his waist. “Too long, I can’t, I can’t stand it.”

They don’t even make it to the bedroom. Roger bends Rafa over the couch and fucks him hard. Rafa is loud, always, with Roger’s cock inside him, but he can’t bring himself to care. “Hijo de puta,” he breathes, afterwards, Roger sagging over him, over his back, panting against his spine.

“Shit,” gasps Roger.

Rafa just groans.

Later, when they crawl into bed and are curled sleepily around each other, Roger says, “I should have visited you after Wimbledon.”

Rafa huffs out a laugh. “Sí, you should.”

Roger nuzzles into the back of his neck, kissing him, holding him. “The boys had a cold. I couldn’t leave Mirka.”

Rafa opens his eyes and turns over, taking Roger in the crook of his arm, pulling him against his body. He sighs. “Roger?” he says.

“Mmm?” says Roger, against his shoulder.

“Do you ever feel that something has to change?”

Roger looks up at him. “Like what?” he says. And then, when Rafa doesn’t answer, “Rafa, like what?”

“I don’t know,” says Rafa. He is stroking Roger’s back, looking at the stretch of their bodies in the dim light, entwined under the sheets. “Just… something.”

Roger leans up on his elbow, looking down at Rafa, his hand curled into a loose fist on Rafa’s chest. “Not-- not you and me?” he says. “You’re not saying… we can’t…” He’s grasping for words. “This isn’t going to end, right?”

“No, no, Rogi,” says Rafa, drawing him back down again, holding him tightly. “No, this is not what I mean.”

“Good. Shit, Rafa.” Roger presses a kiss to his shoulder, his neck. “I couldn’t take it if that changed.”

“I don’t want this change, Roger,” says Rafa, sighing. “Unless to have more of you. Then, I would change.”

Roger nuzzles against him, pushing, sliding on top of him, spreading his legs and settling between them. “I know, I know, Raf,” he whispers. “If I could, god, you know I would, right? If it was possible.”

“I would change everything,” says Rafa. “I’d tell everyone.”

Roger presses his forehead to Rafa’s. “If we could, Raf, if we could, I’d do anything you want.” Rafa holds his face, pushing his fingers through his hair. “Anything.”

Rafa can feel his dick, already pendulous, hardening as Roger moves against him. “I want…” he says, lifting his legs, wrapping them around Roger’s waist. “I want all of you.”

Roger buries his face in the curve of Rafa’s neck. “You have all of me,” he says. “I swear you do.”

“For now,” says Rafa, holding him there, whispering against the shell of his ear.

“Yeah,” says Roger. He pushes up again, finding Rafa’s mouth, grazing his lips with kisses. “For now. It’s the best I can do.”

When they fuck, they fuck slowly. But there is nothing languorous about their tight desperation, their knuckles white as they hold each other, their breath coming in gasps, their gazes locked together as if they’d lose each other if they looked away.

 

The day is close and overcast, hardly a breeze in the still air, even out on the stretches of practice courts. “Come on,” says Toni. “Again.” Over and over, forehand drills. Over and over, he hits the net, he hits them long, he hits them wide. He no longer even shrugs or expresses frustration. There’s something broken, he knows, and it will take its own time to fix. He wipes the sweat from his eyes, his face, his arms, and goes through it again and again till he’s wrung out.

“Rafa, I’m dying,” Marc calls across the net. “Toni, come on. Break?” He appeals to him with a dimpled smile.

“Alright, take a rest,” says Toni, his hat pulled low over his eyes. His arms are tightly crossed and he mutters closely with Carlos Costa.

“It’ll come,” says Rafa, wearily. He sits down on the bench, reaching for his water bottles. “It just might not be soon, that’s all.”

“Yes,” says Toni. “And we’ll keep working till it does.”

Rafa nods. “Yeah,” he says, and he takes a mouthful of water.

“Of course,” says Marc, sitting beside him, leaving Toni and Carlos Costa to their discussion. “I know it’ll change, Rafa.” He puts his hand on Rafa’s thigh, just briefly, just a point of contact. Rafa lets him draw his hand away.

He looks across the practice courts. Roger is a few courts over, hitting metronomic forehands, precise and beautiful backhands. His serve is perfect, hitting his marks every time. “Not soon, though, Marc,” says Rafa, quietly.

“Hmm?” says Marc, glancing over at him.

“Nothing’s going to change soon.” Rafa sighs, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees.

“You don’t know that, Raf, come on,” says Marc. Then, when he sees Rafa’s face, “Oh.”

“It’s just… it’s not the right time.”

“Right,” says Marc. He looks across the practice courts and watches Roger hitting backhands. “Or not the right person.”

“Stop,” says Rafa, holding his head in his hands.

“I know, Raf, what he means to you,” says Marc. He touches Rafa again, a palm against his shoulder, friendly, solid. “Believe me, I know.”

Rafa breathes deeply and sits back against the bench. “I know you do,” he says, and he can’t quite look him in the eyes.

 

Xisca comes to New York on the Tuesday before the US Open begins. They stand on the red carpet at the Nike event with their arms around each other, practised smiles, the picture of easy intimacy. 

“But my dear,” says Anna Wintour, standing beside Roger and Mirka, talking to Xisca. “Let me send you something for the Vogue party. The two of you must come.”

“Thank you,” says Xisca, over the pounding music. “That’s very kind.” 

“And Mirka, you too. Two sets of twins,” she says, looking Mirka up and down. “You’re an inspiration.” 

“Oh, stop,” says Mirka, smiling.

“And when are you two going to finally make it official?” says Anna, turning back to Rafa and Xisca. “Gosh,” she says, laughing. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you hear that all the time.”

“No, no,” says Rafa. “It’s okay, no? It’s already official. For us.” The flashing lights are constant irritants at the edge of his vision. Someone jostles against him and backs away, apologising.

“Yes,” says Xisca. “Of course it is.”

He catches Roger’s eye and there’s a look on his face that tears Rafa’s heart in two. Sad and happy at the same time, as if he lives in two worlds, and they cannot quite align.


End file.
